The event is a tradition that dates to 1910 and takes place at the station's Lockwood Farm in Hamden. More than 500 people attended Wednesday's event, including Scout troops, landscapers, farmers and teachers.

Marra said the superstorm also set up conditions in which trees won't be able to endure future dry spells and attacks from fungus.

Salt spray sets up a host of problems for trees, affecting their physiology in such a way to make it impossible for the tree to take up nutrients, Marra said.

Closer to the coastline, many trees were beset by flooding, which can damage soil to the point where roots are no longer able to function.

"You'll see yellowing, curling and wilting foliage and deciduous trees that produce smaller leaves the following year and an early onset of fall color," Marra said. "In many of these trees, they never quite recover and die over a period of one to three years. The tree fails to put out new roots, making it less able to endure a drought,"

Flooding also can kill the soil's mycorrhizal fungi, now seen as essential for root health in plants, he said.

To make matters worse, Sandy occurred at a time in which trees were already under severe stress.

"In August 2011, we had Irene; then that October we had a snowstorm known as Stormageddon," Marra said. "That was followed by a winter with freakishly warm weather, so warm that the trees didn't experience the kind of dormant phase that they're adapted to. Then the spring of 2011 was the hottest, driest on record. Nothing like it ever on the record books."

But that's not all, because the summer that preceded Sandy was also one of the hottest ever.

"So these trees were set up with a number of stressors before Sandy hit," he said.

Looking back at the weather data, Marra said there no doubt we are living on a planet that's hotter.